For the past year or so, I’ve been working on a new round of books, to print some of the content I’ve created since 2012. Whereas the CAD 1.0 Box Set encompassed the entire first ten years in one (ridiculously giant) three volume set, the comics since then have been designed to be split up a bit differently, to account for the different paces at which I produce that material.

So I envisioned three separate “series” so to speak, and I have the first volume of each almost ready to go. That means I need to figure out how to tackle getting these printed, and that’s where your opinion comes in.

Here’s what I’ve got:

The Starcaster Chronicles Vol 1

Remastered editions of The Starcaster Chronicles issues #1-5. I’ve gone through every page, fixed up artwork where it needed it, where something was miscolored, redid all of the word balloons, etc.

A ton of extra content like species profiles, branches and ranks of the United Federation armed forces, artwork and sketches and the like. Lore stuff for the Starcaster universe.

A section that details every single path choice that took place during those five issues, what the choices were, and what would have happened had the story gone a different direction.

Analog and D-Pad Vol 1

Every Ethan and Lucas comic through 2017, including those produced for Patreon, arranged chronologically between the comic issues to create a continuous timeline for their story.

The original three issues of Analog and D-Pad from circa 2006-2008. These are no longer canon, but I’m including them because they’re fun.

Extra art and stuff.

Ctrl+Alt+Del 2.0 Vol 1 (working title)

Every other comic I’ve made between the ending of CAD 1.0 in 2012, through the end of 2014, arranged into sections by series for easy reading. So an entire section for the Console Wars, a section for all of the Campaign comics, a section for all of the one-shots, etc.

This is the biggest of the three books, and the series that will likely receive more regular new volumes, due to the amount of content I create.

So those are the books, and while future volumes may be staggered (for instance, I’ll have content for a new CAD 2.0 book more often than a new Starcaster book), for the first volumes I am in a postion where I have all three of them ready to go at the same time. I need to decide how I want to do that, and that’s where your feedback comes in.

I can do a Kickstarter for all three books at once. This is more logistically difficult for me, because I need to make sure that three separate books are getting at least minimal funding, and that one overperforming book isn’t carrying another underperforming book. However the benefit is, that doing this way could help save on shipping for anyone that wanted more than one of the books (since we can package them together).

But if there isn’t enough support for that, it’s more straightforward for me to run Kickstarters for one book at a time, and just treat them each like their own separate project.

Right now we’re looking at producing the books in Hardcover with a dustjacket, since that seems to be the far more popular choice, at $25 each. I would also be looking to have a limited number of “early bird” tiers which discounted the books if you bought all three, say $65 for the set.*

*This is all ballpark, just for the sake of argument. Everything is subject to change.

So with that information on hand, let me know if you’re interested in owning nice physical hardcover copies of these comics, and if so, which ones. It will help me decide the best way to tackle putting these up for order.

I’ll be very interested in an “Analog and D-Pad” volume.
I _may_ also be interested in “Ctrl+Alt+Del 2.0” though.

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24 days ago

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Jacob Hamilton

I would gladly back another Kickstarter for all three books, I was extremely pleased with the first campaign and the results. Please use the notification option on Kickstarter from the first campaign and send out another email from there I’m sure plenty of people would like to continue the sets

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24 days ago

Member

Kasaix

I’d love to get my hands on Analogue and D-Pad, and Ctrl+Alt+Del 2.0 Vol 1.

There’s not enough of them to justify printing them alone. In order to print a low-page-count traditional comic book, AND sell it at the cover price people typically expect to pay for a regular comic book, you have to print thousands and thousands in order to make the numbers line up. It just doesn’t work for an independant publisher like myself.

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24 days ago

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Redrat

I’d love to buy all three, if shipping wasn’t absurdly expensive to my country 🙁

I don’t know which country that is, but these books will be much lighter than the previous box set, so shipping in general SHOULD be much less cost prohibitive.

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23 days ago

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BrasilianEngineer

Of course, shipping costs have gone up since then, so your mileage may vary.

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23 days ago

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Redrat

It’s Brazil, and we also have a very high tax on imported goods. But if they’ll be lighter, and shipping is not as expensive, then it’s possible that the total value stays below the maximum value for tax exemption! This is great news!

I know that this is highly unlikely due to the amount of additional work that it would entail, I would imagine an actual “choose-your-own-adventure” version of Starcaster would be amazing. It was mentioned that there would be a section detailing all the path choices and the results of those choices but, having a fond memory of reading CYOA-style books when I was young, to actually go through one both textually and visually would be truly awesome.

I think the people that suggest this haven’t really considered the work that’s involved. The CYOA books you read as a kid were self-contained stories. Starcaster is an ongoing series. So even if I drew out every possible path for Issue #1, we would have 2-3 different endings for that issue. So THEN, I have to draw 2-3 different Issue #2s, in order to account for the various choices made in Issue #1. Then I have three different issue #2s, EACH with 2-3 different endings of their own. Now I’m creating 9 different issue #3s, and so on, exponentially. IF… Read more »

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23 days ago

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Patrick

Or, and just hear me out, you could have the ending of each series of choices be the same. Say that it’s due to the “momentum of the other character’s choices” a sort of “mass effect”. Then you avoid exponentially increasing numbers of comics *and* everyone is happy!

Sure, we just remove the possibility of the choices having any real consequence. There are no “go to place A or place B” choices, no “this person lives or this person dies” choices… it’s all just meaningless fluff. The illusion of choice. 😉

Oh, the scope would be ridiculously huge! I wouldn’t wish that workload and financial stress on anyone. If the series wasn’t a series, it might be plausible. I think it could be an interesting concept for a choose-your-own-adventure one-shot product based on The Campaign, especially if most of the TPK results were handled by a generic death scene page. For anyone that has read a CYOA book, you soon realized that the “turn to page X” result was a bad ending, no matter where the story went. Overlapping story paths and a handful of end results could work… but only… Read more »

Someday I hope to write a contained CYOA story set in the Starcaster universe. But for the ongoing thing, the best I can do re: paths not chosen is explain to you my vision for what was going to happen.

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23 days ago

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MightyThor34

I would be much more interested in a full set, but maybe if there isn’t enough support for that if you do three kickstarters if they all get funded maybe you can include a bundle option for those to get all of them?

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23 days ago

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Socker234

I’d be interested in a full set that includes an option to add on the CAD 1.0 Box Set, if that’s possible.

It is not possible. There are no copies of the 1.0 set left and I will never print that box set again.

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23 days ago

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DocRock

Looks like the CAD 1.0 Box Set PDF is available though, only $15 😉

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22 days ago

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Sam

“and that oneoverperforming book isn’t carrying another underperforming book.” – just interested why this is an issue? Eg our choir puts on concerts that lose money, covered by other more popular concerts we do. Isnt it a good thing if one book sold so well it meant it could cover one that wasn’t but you still wanted to publish?

Except that there tends to be a minumum number books I have to print, in order to sell them at the cover price I’ve settled on.

So if a book does not sell it’s minimum, but another book does overly well, then I’m basically cannibalizing any potential profit I might see in order to print a bunch of copies of the other book that clearly isn’t in demand.

So it all depends on the degree of the disparity. I want to see these books in print, but I also have to be smart about it from a business standpoint.

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22 days ago

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Jacob K.

I would like all 3 books with a sleeve like 1.0 had. Either way i am stoked for this. Even though i haven’t missed an update in a while, nothing beats sitting down in a chair and flipping through the pages and reading

Also, have you ever thought of making a comic for the old Wintereenmas Tournament that you posted the script for but didnt have time to make? Would be a cool thing to possibly add to a book. Maybe as a stretch goal.

I’m not doing a sleeve for these, because I view them as the first volume of three separate series.

What I WOULD do, however, is after I’ve printed a number of each volumes, is consider offering a sleeve in a future Kickstarter as a bonus item, so that you can then collect all of your Analog and D-Pad Volumes or Starcaster, or whatever, into a sleeve designed to fit them.

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22 days ago

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Daniel Sørensen

I would very much appreciate that idea. Having a sleeve down the road would be awesome. So when that time comes, sign me up.

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21 days ago

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Jacob Keller

Oh okay I like that idea better. That means more books down the line. Either way I am in.

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21 days ago

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Daniel Sørensen

Since I consider everything part of CAD, then I’m very interested in all of it. To me, I don’t care if it is one kickstarter for each book, or one for the whole thing. Ofcourse shipping is cheaper with the former, but it really comes down to, what is the best logistic choice for you.
None the less, the last kickstarter was great, and you kept us updated through the whole process, which is why I would like to support again.

Thanks Daniel 🙂 I assure you, I will put the same level of effort into producing these books as the last ones!

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22 days ago

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Dave Morgan

Being in the UK, all three together would be great as it helps to keep costs down. Will be lovely to put them with the Vol 1.0 boxset!

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23 days ago

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TheCK

Is our answer ONLY for printed books or also for digital cd/dvd of books like you’ve done in the past?

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22 days ago

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DocRock

I’m sure Tim will answer this, but I’m betting it’s only for the printed books. If you join his Patreon for only $3/month, you get access to the PDF version of any comic book he releases. I would still very much be interested in all three books as a bundled package, especially since they’ll be organized in a manner that makes it very easy to follow the story (going back into the archives or reading the older comics on Patreon isn’t the easiest thing to do). As a follow up question, perhaps the PDF versions might also be available for… Read more »

Yes, I will do a slipcase for each individual series, once we’ve produced a handful of books for each series.

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22 days ago

Guest

Cheez

I remember an actual book style story you wrote years ago on the site and I always hoped for a complete book around that genre (gaming battle royale paintball IRL match iirc). To me it seemed like thats the way Wintereenmas should go, from gaming to applying the games into a IRL situation.

It was so long ago I can barely remember it or when it was (not really wanting to spend a long time combing thru the archives), but would love to read it again and a continuation if you ever feel up to writing more.

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22 days ago

Member

Kasaix

I remember reading that. You asked people to proofread and send you errors. I was young and misguided, so I sent each mistake and correct to you…in separate emails. I’m sorry about that.

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19 days ago

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James

The Game Games Bowl. (https://cad-comic.com/comic/the-game-games-bowl/). The PDF in the news post still seems to work too! Still read it every now and then.
Tim, I know your passion has always been with the comics and the artwork, but honestly, you have a gift for storytelling in general and this short story was excellent. If you ever feel like putting finger to keyboard again, that would be awesome I’m sure!

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19 days ago

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Jason Merrifield

Hey Tim,
Aussie reader here. Bought the 1.0. More than looking forward to all three books. I’d be interested in more original artwork as well. Big fan. Really looking forward to the lore for Starcaster too!
Jason

I missed out on the first collection box set. I kick myself over and over again. I’m not going to let this pass me by. I wish I could have the option to not only purchase the new collection that you are presenting but also spend a little more to get the first collection too.

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16 days ago

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SCOTT SCHIFFMACHER

I want them all. It would also be cool if they matched the previous format (I already own the box set), but definitely not a deal-breaker.

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15 days ago

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Raymond Arnold

fwiw (while I probably am not in the market for any of the books so discount my preferences), as far as the CAD2.0 goes, I think it makes more sense to mix in the console wars and regular stuff – the console wars seem more funny to me as a periodic glimpse into a world than something I’d want to read all at once)